Having covered Venice and Verona, the two biggest tourist draws in the Veneto, and the larger towns that are centers of business, industry, and home to a decent portion of people in the Veneto, it’s time to move on to some of my favorite places: the smaller towns that aren’t the target of so many…

There’s still no deal, no collapse, nothing certain, but since one more union signed up to the deal offered by the “courageous entrepreneurs” of CAI, Alitalia is still flying, despite having had Thursday as a “deadline”. There are a few more unions still holding out: pilots, flight assistants and a few others. The new deadline…

Well, if not her, Berlusconi is still talking up a storm. The latest “deadline” is supposed to be tomorrow, Thursday, after which Alitalia will stop flying. Of course, these “deadlines” don’t have much credibility, but sooner or later there will be a real one, and this one looks to have some force behind it. As…

Despite its problems, there are still a lot of things that Italy gets right. One of them is the attitude towards alcohol. Put simply, it’s not such a "Big Deal" like it is in the US. It’s a normal part of life, rather than the forbidden fruit it has turned into for those under the…

Today’s Alitalia news: As mentioned yesterday, Alitalia has finally gone ahead and started trying to sell off the good bits in something akin to an auction, something that should have happened a long time ago. At this point, it’s going to be pretty dicey to put much together, as the deadline is the 30th of…

Unless something happens behind the scenes with negotiations between the unions and the “good company” CAI (the “courageous” entrepreneurs who kindly offered to buy all of the good bits of Alitalia), it looks like the “good company” has been ditched at the altar. With less than a week to go, Alitalia is going up for…

The group of investors who were ready to sweep up all the good, productive, moneymaking parts of Alitalia (being a businessman with government connections in Italy is sure a tough job) appear to have withdrawn their offer after they failed to come to an agreement with unions: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/09/18/alitalia.financial.trouble/index.html The latest, in Italian, from the Corriere…

As I’ve written in the past (spritz), going to the piazza for a “spritz” is one of my favorite ways to spend a hour with friends in the evening. The history behind the spritz is interesting too: after the Napoleonic wars, the Austrians gained control of much of the Veneto. Being a hotter clime than…

Monday, supposedly the day when flights would start being canceled has come and gone. It’s now Tuesday evening, and things still appear to be running. Negotiations with the unions are still going on, even though they appear to not be going well. The situation is likely to be one of these, but only time will…

While tourists flock to Venice because of its uniqueness, unfortunately, the locals have been headed out of the city for years, mostly to the town of Mestre, on terra firma on the other side of the bridge. Indeed, even though Venice maintains its place as the administrative capital of the Veneto, the real business of…